Should we trust in Mary, “the ark of the covenant”?
The true ark of the covenant, not to be confused with Noah’s ark, that the Lord told the Israelites to build is described in the book of Exodus:
“ ‘They shall make a sanctuary for me, that I may dwell in their midst. This Dwelling and all its furnishings you shall make exactly according to the pattern that I will now show you. You shall make an ark of acacia wood...’ ” (Exodus 25:8–10).
In this passage, the ark is referred to only as “an ark.” However, that same ark is later called “the ark of the covenant.” Deuteronomy 10:8 says,
“At that time the Lord set apart the tribe of Levi to carry the ark of the covenant of the Lord, to be in attendance before the Lord and minister to him, and to give blessings in his name, as they have done to this day.” (Deuteronomy 10:8)
The ark of the covenant was made as a dwelling place for God. And since Jesus, God the Son, dwelt in Mary’s womb, the Catholic Catechism teaches that Mary is the new “ark of the covenant”:
“Full of grace, the Lord is with thee: These two phrases of the angel’s greeting shed light on one another. Mary is full of grace because the Lord is with her. The grace with which she is filled is the presence of him who is the source of all grace. ‘Rejoice . . . O Daughter of Jerusalem . . . the Lord your God is in your midst.’ Mary, in whom the Lord himself has just made his dwelling, is the daughter of Zion in person, the ark of the covenant, the place where the glory of the Lord dwells. She is ‘the dwelling of God . . . with men.’ Full of grace, Mary is wholly given over to him who has come to dwell in her and whom she is about to give to the world” (para. 2676; italics in original).
Since Jesus did dwell in Mary’s womb during her pregnancy, a person could possibly compare Mary to the ark of the covenant. But after Jesus’ birth, He no longer dwelt in Mary’s womb, and therefore any comparisons should end there. But the Catholic Catechism teaches that Mary is still the “ark of the covenant” and that we should trust in her. The Catholic Catechism teaches:
“Because she gives us Jesus, her son, Mary is Mother of God and our mother; we can entrust all our cares and petitions to her: she prays for us as she prayed for herself: ‘Let it be to me according to your word.’ By entrusting ourselves to her prayer, we abandon ourselves to the will of God together with her: ‘Thy will be done.’
Pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death: By asking Mary to pray for us, we acknowledge ourselves to be poor sinners and we address ourselves to the ‘Mother of Mercy,’ the All-Holy One. We give ourselves over to her now, in the Today of our lives. And our trust broadens further, already at the present moment, to surrender ‘the hour of our death’ wholly to her care” (para. 2677; italics in original).
Should we place our trust in Mary, the “ark of the covenant”? Notice what happened when the Israelites placed their trust in the ark of the covenant:
“When the troops retired to the camp, the elders of Israel said, ‘Why has the Lord permitted us to be defeated today by the Philistines? Let us fetch the ark of the Lord from Shiloh that it may go into battle among us and save us from the grasp of our enemies’ ” (1 Samuel 4:3).
Here is what happened:
“The Philistines fought and Israel was defeated; every man fled to his own tent. It was a disastrous defeat, in which Israel lost thirty thousand foot soldiers. The ark of God was captured, and Eli’s two sons, Hophni and Phinehas, were among the dead” (1 Samuel 4:10, 11).
When the Israelites placed their trust in the ark of the covenant, they were not just defeated—they experienced a “disastrous defeat.”
Entrusting our cares to the ark of the covenant is not what God wants. He wants us to be devoted to and trust in Him and in Him alone. God made His desire clear after the Israelites returned to Him:
“Samuel said to them: ‘If you wish with your whole heart to return to the LORD, put away your foreign gods and your Ashtaroth, devote yourselves to the LORD, and worship Him alone. Then he will deliver you from the power of the Philistines.’ So the Israelites put away their Baals and Ashtaroth, and worshiped the LORD alone” (1 Samuel 7:3, 4; italics added).
The Israelites confessed that they had sinned against the Lord (1 Samuel 7:6) and began trusting in God alone to save them, not in the ark of the covenant or anything else. They asked Samuel to
“Implore the LORD our God unceasingly for us, to save us from the clutches of the Philistines” (1 Samuel 7:8).
Did God save them? First Samuel 7:10 reports,
“That day, however, the Lord thundered loudly against the Philistines, and threw them into such confusion that they were defeated by Israel.” “Samuel then took a stone and placed it between Mizpah and Jeshanah; he named it Ebenezer, explaining, ‘To this point has the Lord helped us’ ” (1 Samuel 7:10-12).
It is clear that we are to trust in the Lord and in Him alone! The Catholic Catechism, in agreement with the Bible, also teaches,
“It is right and just to entrust oneself wholly to God and to believe absolutely what he says. It would be futile [useless] and false to place such faith in a creature” (para. 150).
The Catholic Catechism teaches in one place to “entrust oneself wholly to God,” and in another to “entrust all our cares and petitions” to Mary, to “give ourselves over to her,” and to “surrender the hour of our death wholly to her care.” If one entrusts himself wholly to God, then he cannot entrust his or her cares to Mary. Should we surrender “‘the hour of our death’ wholly to her care”? Or would it “be futile and false to place such faith in a creature”?
The Bible teaches us that we should entrust all our cares to God:
“Cast your care upon the Lord, who will give you support” (Psalm 55:23).
“Cast all your worries [or cares] upon him because He cares for you” (1 Peter 5:7).
If we follow what the Bible teaches, we should entrust Jesus with all of our cares. For He, being God, is completely able to protect us and provide for us. If we believe the Bible to be true, then entrusting even some of our cares to Mary would be disobeying what the Bible teaches.
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